Corporate Sponsorship Anecdote

[rbnyc]

I am a not-for-profit fundraising executive. I am responsible for all the contributed income for my organization--individual, foundation, government and corporate. We do take money from corporations. It is important to us to be able to demonstrate values match; we do have some standards. But if you want to be totally pure, IMO, you can’t use money at all.

Anyway, recently I’ve seen some bad press about one of our corporate sponsors discussed online, in forums such as this, where I participate with a user name. Were I to participate in any of these discussions, it is not very likely that my organization or my sponsor would see my remarks or take the necessary steps to associate them with me or my organization. Still, I have decided not to participate.

The sponsor in question has given a few thousand dollars of income that I would be able to replace if lost. The likelihood that there would be a consequence were I to discuss press related to this sponsor online is very remote. Still, I have opted out. Moreover, in reading the news about this sponsor, I feel myself wanting to discredit the reporting. I am not confident in my ability to be objective.

It’s not a surprise to anyone here, and I think we all agree, that corporate money has a huge negative influence on free speech. It’s ironic that Citizens United has given corporate money even more power under the pretense of protecting speech. We know that advertisers influence what is reported in the news, we know our elected officials rely on huge corporate contributions in order to run viable campaigns and have to consider how every word and policy decision will impact their fundraising potential. I know this isn’t news.

But it was interesting for me to notice this dynamic at work in my own life and work.

EDIT: typo